Esports Wrap-Up for 05th december

Spotlight on Orena and Mega8 Dota2 Results

By
christopher house

Partner Content By Cougar Gaming

This week we summarize Orena's reversal on a recent decision they had made regarding withholding prize money from teams after one of their tournaments was completed, due to technical faults with their online ladder system. We also wrap-up the end of the Mega8 Esports Pro16 Dota2 League from the weekend's South Africa esports scene.

Orena Premier Ladder

The Orena Championship Series (OCS) was announced earlier this year with a prize pool of approximately R1.4 million across two titles; Counter-strike: Global Offensive and Dota2. The tournament structure also saw the potential inclusion of wildcard teams in the OCS event. Teams had to qualify via the Orena Premier Ladder system. Teams which placed in the top positions on the ladder would be eligible to attend the OCS main event as wildcard entries. In addition, teams that placed in the top eight positions of the Premier Ladder in CS:GO or Dota2 would earn themselves a share of R100,000 in prize money spread equally between the two titles. Since the very best teams were already competing in the OCS and were ineligible to play in the Premier Ladder, this tournament proved a huge opportunity for tier 2 teams to earn a fair chunk of change. This was something that tier 2 teams quickly took advantage of, with 17 tier 2 teams signing up for the Dota2 Premier Ladder and 31 teams signing up for the CS:GO Premier Ladder.

Specifically, Orena announced that the prizes they had advertised for months were no longer valid

Once the Premier Ladder for CS:GO and Dota2 had concluded (around two months ago), Orena announced massive changes to wildcard seeding for OCS and prize money that was meant to be awared. Specifically, Orena announced that the prizes they had advertised for months were no longer valid for teams who participated in the Premier Ladder. They instead shifted the R100,000 total prize pool from the Premier Ladder into the larger OCS pot. Their reason for this had to do with potential abuse of their ladder system, where their logic was: “We have made the decision with the idea of trying to keep the tournament as fair as possible due to the fact that we faced critical issues with our ladder ranking system which is currently being rectified.” Despite teams having informed Orena of critical problems with the ladder during the season, Orena pulled the prize money from the top eight teams in the Premier Ladder for CS:GO and Dota2.

There was a pretty loud public outcry on social media regarding this issue once it came to light, with teams, players, and the public upset about the decision Orena had made. Since I went live with my article on Zombiegamer regarding the issue, some other online publications also picked up the story and likewise expressed dismay at the decision. Despite numerous calls for Orena not to go through with their decision, Orena said very little. Just last week Orena sent out an email to all the affected teams with an update. Orena announced they were reversing their decision, and that they'd pay out the initial prize pools as promised to the top eight placing teams in the Dota2 and CS:GO Premier Ladders. Here's an excerpt from the email Orena sent to the teams involved:

Orena will pay the necessary winnings to the TOP 8

"Orena will pay the necessary winnings to the TOP 8 placing teams from the ladder.We will be resetting the league standings in the New Year, meaning we will re-invite the “TOP 10” teams to compete in the OCS League to be “re-seeded” with lower divisions being opened to accommodate “WILDCARDS” for our final LAN event. This (as has been mentioned before) is mainly due to the reshuffle of team members.We will release the full list of invites for DOTA2 & CSGO in the coming weeks.With the above in mind, could you please forward the (“TEAM/ORG NAME”) bank account details so we can begin the process. Please bear with us as corporate payment procedures do apply. Thank you for your patience during this time.We believe 2018 is going to be a fantastic year for gaming in South Africa and at Orena, and we look forward to treating your teams to a healthy year of esports on our platforms."

This is an important reversal by Orena in agreeing to honor the original Premier Ladder prizes. They also announced that going into the new year they’ll reseed the top 10 teams before their OCS LAN event, while still including some wildcard element.

Mega8 Pro16 Dota2 League Wrap-up

The Mega8 Esports Pro16 Dota2 League round seven took place over the weekend. The results from Sunday were as follows:

Goliath Gaming 2-0 NibbLe.Horde

Aperture Gaming 1-0 4Head (forfeit)

Sinister5 2-0 New Text Document

White Rabbit Gaming 2-0 Energy eSports

Exdee Gaming 2-0 Clan-In-Progress

Epoch Esports 2-0 Divine e-Sports

This spells the end for the league stage of the Mega8 Dota2 event, with the top four teams in each group qualifying for the LAN event. Group A was dominated by White Rabbit Gaming, who earned the maximum 21 points. They were followed by Sinister5 on 18 points, who only lost to White Rabbit Gaming. The 3rd and 4th spots were picked up by Energy eSports (15 points) and Aperture Gaming (12 points). Group B was likewise dominated by Bravado Gaming who ended top with the maximum 21 points. Exdee Gaming (18 points) came in second, with Epoch Esports (15 points) and Alpha Star Gaming (12 points) rounding out the 3rd and 4th qualifying spots.

These eight teams will face off in a LAN event sometime in the future. As of yet there are no details on when or where the LAN event. I reached out to Mega8 for any updates or details, to which they replied, "We haven't confirmed any dates or venue yet but we will release this information soon." Keep an eye on their social media for this announcement.

Christopher House is an ex-DOTA 2 competitive player who works as an independent esports journalist. Link up with him at @SargonDotA2